The Collected Stories

Paley is as clever a mimic as Philip Roth, as cheerfully zany and aleatory in her vision of New York as Christina Stead, as serendipitous as Donald Bartheleme, but her unladylike gutsiness and friendliness are nonpareil - EDMUND WHITE, OBSERVER

This is a collection full of energy and stunning, quiet innovation ... it spills over with contempt, raucous humour, sadness and generosity. In it, life and language are synonymous, and there is no higher praise. What a wonderful book - ALI SMITH, SCOTSMAN

An understanding of loneliness, lust, selfishness and fatigue that is splendidly comic and unladylike - PHILIP ROTH

Largely set within the same small close-knit community in New York's Lower East Side ... ultimately what's at stake for Paley is whether to believe in the comic possibility of continuance or the tragic inevitablity of ending. Grace Paley's is an exceptiona - KASIA BODDY, GUARDIAN

Paley is as clever a mimic as Philip Roth, as cheerfully zany and aleatory in her vision of New York as Christina Stead, as serendipitous as Donald Bartheleme, but her unladylike gutsiness and friendliness are nonpareil - EDMUND WHITE, OBSERVER

This is a collection full of energy and stunning, quiet innovation ... it spills over with contempt, raucous humour, sadness and generosity. In it, life and language are synonymous, and there is no higher praise. What a wonderful book - ALI SMITH, SCOTSMAN

An understanding of loneliness, lust, selfishness and fatigue that is splendidly comic and unladylike - PHILIP ROTH

Largely set within the same small close-knit community in New York's Lower East Side ... ultimately what's at stake for Paley is whether to believe in the comic possibility of continuance or the tragic inevitablity of ending. Grace Paley's is an exceptiona - KASIA BODDY, GUARDIAN